I mean, seriously. "Slaughter" has such a negative connotation attached to it. I prefer "population control" ...
I’m sick and tired of all the hand-wringing and whining going on in the liberal media over the supposed “crisis” in Burma. Seriously, who cares? Let the Burmese worry about Burma, I always say.…
Article comments
26 - Dr Dreadful
Er, gotit?
Good to see you 'got' RJ's point. However, I don't know where you 'got' your figures of 6200 people slaughtered by Saddam per day.
The population of Iraq is 27 million, give or take. Saddam was in power from July 16, 1979 to April 9, 2003. By my quick calculation, that's 8669 days. If you multiply that by your figure, you get a total of 53,747,800 killed.
Even allowing for the most enthusiastic copulation by the surviving Iraqis on any given day, if your figures were anything like accurate it's hard to see how there would have been any population left for Saddam to dictate to, or for us to liberate.
27 - gotit
My mistake...here was the quote:
Compare with an average death toll of 6,200/month for 27 years under Saddam.
28 - Independent
Actually, this IS good satire. Political satire isn't meant to create a type of humor that encourages happy feelings, its designed to expose the heartless types of thinking that cause real tragedies to happen and its designed to make the reader squirm uncomfortably. Its cynical, its brutal, and its honest about things we all wish would just go away.
Swift didn't really want to eat Irish babies obviously...and even though his classic essay was criticized as grotesque and unconscionable, it served a purpose of promoting awareness and shining a spotlight on the real horror of the situation and the cold & calculating mentalities that make it happen.
29 - REMF
"...the same ones saying this satire is disgusting are the first ones to call our U.S. military baby killers and say the Iraqis were better off under Saddam."
- gotit
I thought this satire was disgusting, and I've never called our U.S. military baby killers.
And just out of curiosity, gotit, have you ever done anything besides write macho words on a blogroll to free the oppressed Iraqis?
30 - Lee Richards
#28:
Do you mean the same Saddam whose atrocities we ignored as long as it served our interests in the region, even sending Rumsfeld(!)personally to appease him in the early '80s?
Just wondering: Would contemporary massacres of Christians or Jews, or terrorist attacks against the West be given a Mad Magazine treatment complete with funy fotos here, too?
31 - boletwah
D'you have to label it satire RJ so they 'gotit'? You dislike only left-wing dictators? What about left-wing elected govts? Don't give away too much,do you? Let Burma be Burma? A new doctrine for the US? That'd be the day.
I'm sure E coli tainted spinach is good for you. Seriously man you should've picked a different subject for your little satire.
32 - bliffle
Satire is wry humor, or 'black' humor, if you will. The author exposes the horror by pretending to find it amusing or even plausible. Usually, by the administration of incongruities. Jonathan Swift has "A Modest Proposal", which is quite immodest. We should be warned. But swifts point is well taken: we are often offered proposals which seem quite modest on the face of it, yet are full of dire consequences. Like, "oh, let's go invade Iran".
33 - Dave Nalle
Boletwah, it says 'satire' in the title and most of the commenters STILL didn't get it. I think you don't even get it for that matter, despite discussing the fact that the article is satire.
The problem here is that most people don't understand Satire, it's purpose, how it is used and what it is aimed to accomplish - which is basically to piss off idiots and make them look even stupider, which this has certainly accomplished.
Dave
34 - Ray Ellis
Satire speaks to universal truths, not partisan viewpoints. The atrocities in Burma are in no way linked to US policies in the Middle East.
Dave, you are totally wrong in your assumption that this article "pisses off idiots." Your own prejudices are showing. Are people opposed to mass killings idiots?
35 - elkeel
You obviously have no idea what satire is. I recommend you look up a man by the name of Kurt Tucholsky, who was a master of satire and wrote some of the best literature in this genre during the Nazi Years in Germany. (... not unlike the situation in Burma).
"Revolution! The people howls and cries, Freedom, that's what we're needing! We've needed it for centuries, our arteries are bleeding. The stage is shaking, the audience rock. The whole thing is over by nine o'clock." Kurt Tucholsky
You may be in a masters program for Criminal Justice (judging from your writing here is unfortunate for this country's already troubled justice system). But before you write another horrendous story, please do your research. You're a student! You should know how it's done.
36 - Independent
This is hilarious. Right from Wikipedia under "Misconception of Satire:"
Because satire often combines anger and humour it can be profoundly disturbing - because it is essentially ironic or sarcastic, it is often misunderstood.
Common uncomprehending responses to satire include revulsion (accusations of poor taste, or that it's "just not funny" for instance), to the idea that the satirist actually does support the ideas, policies, or people he is attacking.
37 - Ray Ellis
From Wikipedia, eh?
Because satire often combines anger and humour it can be profoundly disturbing - because it is essentially ironic or sarcastic, it is often misunderstood
Okay. . .You can quote definitions, but you fail to fail to show any "irony" or "sarcasm" to illustrate your premise.
38 - Cindy D
The only people it didn't piss off seems to be the idiots. And that definitely isn't the point of satire.
39 - Kurt Vonnegut
"The problem here is that most people don't understand Satire, it's purpose, how it is used and what it is aimed to accomplish - which is basically to piss off idiots and make them look even stupider, which this has certainly accomplished."
The Tao of Nalle
Most people do understand satire when they step in it and this crap just smells like shit.
40 - Mike Sii
One possible reason for the negative comments could be that many people who are reading this likely searched 'Burma articles', not 'satirical articles for people who like to argue on messageboards'. If you are close to this situation, by, say, being a Burmese national and English is not your first language, the satire would be quite lost, wouldnt it?
41 - meemalee
"One possible reason for the negative comments could be that many people who are reading this likely searched 'Burma articles'"
Got it in one, Mike - this article comes up when you do a google search for "Burma News" (not just Burma articles) - many of the people searching for news are people who have family and friends caught up in the troubles and they're not going to appreciate some punk using their plight as fodder for hilarious overstatement.
As for comparisons to Swift - well, Swift was satirising overpopulation - no-one was offended by him tackling the subject; they were outraged by his "solution". Oh, and Swift could actually write.
In this case, I (and others, I suspect) aren't bothered by the solutions (ie I "get it" - LOL - he's not really saying that monks' blood makes teak flourish - insert appropriate smiley face) - I just don't think the subject itself is ripe for satire.
I once saw a similar "satirical" article on 9/11 which, as well as being about the calibre of this article, had that picture of the poor guy who leapt to his death - the caption said "yippee!".
Yeah - "satirical".
Whatever people say, IMHO some subjects are "sacred" (whatever you wanna call it) - call me humourless, but I don't find jokes about rape funny either, however much the joker might want to claim
"Yes - this is actually a mirror into the darkness of our souls and I'm making you confront your fears with my edgy comedy - aren't I witty and incisive?"
RJ, if you wanna say "You guys are all bleeding heart liberal hypocrites for crying about Burma and not caring about Iraq/Darfur/Tibet" then say it.
If you wanna say we shouldn't intervene because it looks like imperialism then say it.
If you wanna say we should intervene because everyone deserves democracy then say it.
Satire only works if the underlying message is intelligible.
Heavy-handed sarcasm as employed here is not the same thing as satire, so it's hard to work out what the heck you're saying (apart from "Aren't I clever - I can use I-RON-Y").
42 - Ava_Man
I'm sure RJ likes to think of himself as a shining wit .
Bless you , you genius
43 - RJ
Awww, am I making you think too hard, meemalee?
:-(
[Edited]
44 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
RJ;
[Edited]
I still think the editor who let this thing through should not have done so without demanding major changes. It is highly offensive in tone, and if it is under "news" in Google as one commenter reported, too many people are reading it who shouldn't.
The damage cannot be undone now, unfortunately. Just watch your back, for your own sake.
45 - Doug DeLong
It's not often that you encounter heroes of this magnitude; holy men (and others) willing to put their lives on the line to fight for freedom, only to be massacred for their beliefs. It's reminiscent of the brave students in Tiananmen Square who were similarly gunned down.
These men and women deserve to be honored and memorialized, not mocked and ridiculed. Their courage and dignity in the face of death should stand as a model for all of us.
46 - alessandro
First oil, now rice. America will be unstoppable.
47 - Marcia L. Neil
A book titled 'The Elephant Boy of Burma' was one of my childhood favorites, but this macabre piece of writing has disturbed pre-conceptions about danger in the Asian nation. The television news stories show film sequences of the monks gathering, and then the cameo of a Lincolnesque young man baring his chest among them, as if wishing to have an airlift out. A Japanese reporter dies, as if the "damn yankees" are settling a score. This entry is not a satire -- it is a horror story that mistakes men for monkeys.
48 - boletwah
#43 Awww, am I making you think too hard, meemalee?
RJ
You obviously don't do any of that RJ, do you, except for your sorry little pathetic self?
49 - joel beers
wow. personally speaking, i know more about burma from this levely exchange --c'mon people, it's no hard to spot the real news in italics and the intentionally outrageous spoofing of it in the original post--than i did before. Which obviously is not a glowing testament to my knowledge of the country, but so be it.
To the people who love condescendingly calling this young man out as a "kid" or a "student who should know better," etc: get a fucking grip! He's got more on the ball than the humorless prigs whose panties get all twisted when they alight upon something that doesn't jibe with their notions of decency and good taste.
To quote the old Jew on the mountain:
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.
And nothing is phonier than misplaced indignation.
50 - joel beers
and save the cracks about the typographical errors in the preceding post: the truth has no time to wait for proper punctuation!
51 - alessandro
No but pictures would have helped. :<)
52 - Adam
RJ,
Why don't you put a stop to this?
If your blog was supposed to be "taking the piss" then come out and say so instead of letting other people do it for you. If you support these inhumane acts then come out and tell it like it is. Satire may be an entertaining way to get a point across but some people just don't get it. It sure as hell isn't the clearest way of going about it. Apart from the fact that a lot of people probably hate you right now you are probably offending and hurting a lot of confused people.
Put a stop to these comments and let people get over it...
Unless that is, you are trying not to stem the flow of traffic to your personal blog so that you can benefit from a little thing called Google AdSense.
Is that it?
Come out and tell the people your personal views straight up.
In the words of RD Blackmore, "satire is the very lowest, and most mean and common. It is the equivalent in words of what bullying is in deeds".
Let the people rest and speak your true mind!
All bullies are just cowards.
53 - handyguy
The sophomoric, smartass tone is classic RJ.
As has been pointed out, good satire is defined by how well it's written, not by how deliberately offensive it is. If this piece were better written, it might make a point worth making even with more blood. As it is, it's just low-rent snarkiness.
54 - Marcia L. Neil
Real satire would be a literary piece describing a fictional product line of Star Trek Funeral items -- instead, there is a real marketplace and website set up to market Star Trek branded urns and caskets.
55 - Khadim Hussain
Not only Burma, the rest of the world has to let Afganistan and Iraq remain Afghanistan and Burma. Interesting satire.
56 - alessandro
Can't wait on your satire about the Mongorians. ;<)
57 - Dave Nalle
I have to go back to #36 and point out that the definition of satire posted there is like a point for point description of this article and the response to it.
dave
58 - Doug DeLong
I have to go back to #36 and point out that the definition of satire posted there is like a point for point description of this article and the response to it.
Fine, let's stipulate that the article is satire. Can we also agree that it's really, really bad satire?
59 - Justin
Not sorry to say. but your post has shown that your an extremely careless, uneducated person. if you were one of the ones that got killed would you still think it's funny? lol and whatever colledge in florida u graduated from. never heard of it.
60 - REMF
"Fine, let's stipulate that the article is satire. Can we also agree that it's really, really bad satire?"
Agreed.
61 - Roy
I am a Thai monk and this is make me want to cry.
62 - RJ
I see 0bama agrees with me.